Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/567

Rh In the immediate vicinity of the laboratory—in the Inlet and in Harrington Sound—are found an abundant supply of many interesting animals. From the stone pier at the hotel are to be seen great numbers of brightly colored fishes: the yellow-banded sergeant majors (Abudefduf saxatilis), sea squirrels (Holocentrus ascensionis), so called on account of the bigness of their eyes, angel fishes (Angelichthys ciliaris), four eyes (Chætodon bimaculatus) and many others. The large eye-spots of the four-eyes at the tail end of the body evidently afford protection by misleading their enemies into the belief that they will attempt to escape in a direction opposite that in which they actually swim. Schools of blue fry and other small fishes pursued by their enemies make a flash in the sunlight as they leap from the water and a sound like the patter of rain as they descend. Small shoals of white grunt (Bathystoma), that so closely resemble the sandy bottom as to be almost invisible, are slowly patrolling along the beach and often attract one's attention only when their presence causes a commotion among their prospective victims.

The water is so clear that the bottom at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet is seen as distinctly as it would be beneath as many inches of our northern waters. Along the sandy stretches of the inlet, where the current is not too strong, are numerous dark sea-urchins (Toxopneustes variegatus), which have the interesting habit of covering themselves with empty shells, seaweeds or any loose available fragments. Just what sort of protection these screens afford is not quite apparent. To the observer looking from above they are scarcely less conspicuous than when unadorned. Their specific form and characteristic color, it is true, are masked, and possibly this is enough to subserve some useful purpose. By digging a few inches deep in the sand at the right spot one brings up another echinoid, the sand-dollar (Mellita sexforis). Scattered over the bottom are the apparently motionless but conspicuous sea-cucumbers, which the natives call sea-puddings—the Stichopus diaboli and S. xanthomela of Heilprin. These often attain the length of a foot or more and leave behind to mark the track of their slow progress a cord or ridge of sand that has been deprived of its nutritive material in passing through their intestinal tract. These are abundant on many sandy bottoms; other holothurians are less widely distributed. In the shallow parts of the Inlet, which are laid bare at low tide, are the burrows of many annelids and other worms. Where the channel is rocky and the water moves with greater velocity the bottom is often gorgeously painted with patches of bright-colored corallines and encrusting sponges. Opposite the hotel an artificial channel cut through the narrow neck of land that separates the Inlet from Harrington Sound is of this nature and affords a rich collecting ground for many invertebrates. With a row